


The Finer Points of Possession

by Bouzingo



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Bloodstone Circle, Cecil gets possessed and it's not pleasant, Dissociation, M/M, Possession, STREXCORP SUCKS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bouzingo/pseuds/Bouzingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since StrexCorp banned bloodstone circles, possessions have been more and more frequent for Cecil Palmer. The Woman from Italy was just a beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Finer Points of Possession

It's a fairly normal night in; Carlos and Cecil are watching _Outrage_ , and both wishing they'd just settled for _Rashomon_ instead, when Cecil twitches and begins to speak, voice pitched higher than normal.

"Put a bullet in your best boy's blaster for the Blood Space War!" he says brightly, with a smile that grows wider and wider as he keeps talking. "Buy war bonds for your best boy! Blood blaster war bonds! Your best bullet! Blood bonds for your bullet boy!"

Carlos sighs, turns to Cecil, pausing the godawful movie. Since StrexCorp banned bloodstone circles and other such religious paraphernalia, Cecil has been intercepted by more and more psychic charges, everything from melancholy ghosts to radio transmissions from a station in New Mexico. And now, apparently, PR announcements from the fellas fighting the Blood Space War far above their heads.

"Cecil..." he says, and then freezes when he realizes that Cecil is still _present_. His eyes are wide, terrified, and his hands are shaking. Usually he is unaware when a possession takes place, often losing the requisite time upon being returned agency of his body. But now...

Carlos gently gathers Cecil's stiff form into his arms, and hugs him. Cecil is still stuttering fricatives, but his volume and his tone soften as he starts to relax.

"You there, Cecil?" Carlos asks after a while.

"Blood boy bond!" Cecil responds, and shudders. Carlos nods, and waits, rubbing Cecil's back. Nothing to do but wait it out.

Eventually Cecil starts coming around, extricating himself from Carlos's arms. He looks visibly shaken, and starts hugging himself as soon as he's out of Carlos' embrace.

"I wonder if that's how a radio feels," he says with a weak laugh which comes out more watery than either of them like. "If radios have feelings. I mostly think they're just lonely."

"Do you need a glass of water or a blanket, or anything?" Carlos asks, feeling awkward and useless.

"Yeah," Cecil says, and then clarifies, "water."

Dehydration is a signature of possession; the subject's body exerts a huge amount of physical effort, though Carlos isn't quite sure what that energy is burned doing. All he knows is that after any given possession, even a petit mal of sorts like this one, Cecil gets massive headaches, sometimes nausea. Ultimately, a psychic hangover.

He returns with a glass of water and Cecil's neverending quilt, one he started as a teenager and has been adding tiny increments to since then. Cecil picks at a fraying part of the hem absently while he drinks the water.

"It's just getting worse," he says eventually. "I've never been inside while that happened."

Carlos remembers immediately after the broadcast, finding Cecil sprawled under the desk in his recording booth, slowly waking up and panicking because he didn't remember finishing the broadcast. Getting even more confused when Carlos assured him that the show did finish. He didn't think it could get worse than that, then thinks of Cecil trapped in his own body, unable to control what he's saying or doing.

"I have an idea," he says.

* * *

"This is very, very illegal," Cecil says with a half-assed frown. He's sitting on a counter in Carlos' lab, while Carlos is hunched over a drawing on the floor. "Bloodstone circles do not comply with StrexCorp's policy for a secular workplace."

"Well, first of all, this is not a religious exercise. It is a scientific experiment," Carlos reasons. "StrexCorp hasn't banned science. Yet. Second of all, this is after hours, so the lab's not even a workplace at the moment. No lawbreaking here!"

"Finding loopholes has a pretty huge fine attached," Cecil says, but he grins. "You don't know the proper chants. Let me help."

Turns out that the chant to prevent demonic possession needs to be renewed once every three weeks. It's a pretty lengthy chant, but after they finish their ambiguously illicit non-religious activity in the lab, Cecil is possessed a lot less.


End file.
